Hacker News Reader

I was in a computers themed "Explorer Scout" program in the mid-80s (it had some affiliation to the BSA but I'm not sure how) when I was going to high school. One of the benefits of that program was getting your own account on Honeywell's Multics timeshare system.

View on HN

I was in an Explorer Post that met at Convex Computer Corporation in Dallas, TX in 1986. It was my first exposure to Unix and C programming. A few of us got dial-up access to a Convex C-1 “minisupercomputer”. Then I got in trouble for dialing in just to play Hack. (This was before it became Nethack.)

Did Hack really use enough resources for it to be an issue? Or did you get in trouble for using your access to have fun?

I was dialing in to a system used by dozens of Convex employees to do their jobs. One (or more?) of them ran `ps` and didn't like seeing `hack` in the output during business hours. I don't know if it was really a resource consumption issue.

Me too! That's how I got my start in tech.

I now help run FIRST Robotics Competition events as my way of paying it forward.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com